The National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (Nabard) has announced that Rs3,245 crore has been sanctioned to government of Gujarat for irrigation and rural drinking water supply projects in 2021-22 period. This marks more around 8.5% increase as compared to Rs2,989 crore sanctioned in 2020-21. These sanctions have been made under the Rural Infrastructure Development Fund (RIDF).
The sanctions have been granted for two packages of irrigation projects of Saurashtra-Narmada Avataran Irrigation Yojana (SAUNI) Link 3 project worth Rs336 crore. Under SAUNI a million acre feet of flood waters from Narmada will be diverted to Saurashtra region. The SAUNI Link 3 project will connect 28 reservoirs of Dev Bhoomi Dwarka, Jamnagar, Morbi, Porbandar, Rajkot and Surendrnagar district with a 66 km-long pipeline stretching from Dholidhaja dam in Surendrnagar to Venu-1 dam of Rajkot.
Other irrigation projects that are included in the sanctions are lift irrigation in tribal district of Dahod, Panam Reservoir Based Lift Irrigation Scheme, Panam High Level Canal based Lift Irrigation Scheme and Vaghrech Recharge Project. These irrigation projects are expected to expand the irrigation facilities by 75,112 hectares.
As for rural drinking water projects, the Jal Jeevan Mission has been granted Rs1,006 crore. This scheme will ensure functional household tap connections to 85.76 lakh people in eight districts of the state. Two other rural drinking water supply projects have been included in the sanctions.
